CAIRO: In a press conference Monday, Google MENA introduced and briefed attendees on two of its newest programs, Insights MENA and Google +. Insights MENA provides a free online interactive tool of comprehensive research of the media habits of consumers in the Middle East and North Africa. “We wanted to understand how people use the internet in the Middle East. Not only do we want to make the website easy to access, but easy to understand as well,” Karina Przyjemski, research manager for Google UK, said. Insights MENA comprises data from five key MENA markets; Egypt, Jordan, UAE, KSA and Morocco. “We make it easier for businesses to better understand their consumers,” she said. Insights MENA offers well-researched data on media usage, internet usage, mobile usage, activities, e-commerce and online attitudes. This information can then be filtered by gender, age, and country to allow for better targeted results. The site is available in Arabic, French and English. Najeeb Jarrar, head of Marketing for Google MENA, explained that the website uses “cutting-edge technology,” HTML5, which speeds up the process. He added that it is very useful for consumers. The fieldwork for Insights MENA was conducted between September and November 2010 using a sample population of urban men and women aged 15 years and older. The information provided on this latest service is the result of 1,500 face-to-face interviews across the five above-mentioned markets. Google has also managed to venture into social media with Google +. Launched last month, Google + is a “simpler, easier and faster” way to connect with everyone, Jarrar explained. “The number of Google + active users reached 10 million by the middle of July, two weeks after the product's launch,” Jarrar said. “I expect by now the number of users has increased even more and will keep increasing.” To join Google +, users need to receive invitations. “The reason why Google + works with invitations is because we want to make sure we understand the users before we make it widely opened,” Ari Kesisoglu, Google managing director for MENA, told Daily News Egypt. “We want to implement what they need,” he said. According to Jarrar, Google + is user friendly, allowing users to create circles with certain groups of friends and others and have the freedom to choose with whom you would like to share your information. “You can even have a ‘Hangout,' which is a videoconference with the people you choose or even the circle you choose,” he added. Since users save a lot of data on their social media accounts, Jarrar explained that one of the best advantages of Google + is that “it allows users to download all their data on another program, if they wish to deactivate their account at anytime.” Google + plans to attract users of other social media, Kesisoglu told DNE, explaining that when users are offered a better project, better privacy and what they want, “they will prefer it more.” “I expect to attract these users by hearing their feedback in order to be [their number one choice],” he said. “We offer the best, so they will choose us.” As there are 85 million internet users in the Arab region, it is important for Google to make it easier for all users, Jarrar said. “Google's main philosophy is to focus on innovation,” Kesisoglu said.
